


Black Tea

by Catznetsov



Series: Honey [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hero Worship, Mutual Pining, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 19:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13958019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catznetsov/pseuds/Catznetsov
Summary: “Yeah, okay,” Geno says, and tips his head towards the third table over towards the wall, where the other young guys are crowded.If Alex were looking, it’d be hard to miss how one of them doesn’t even look old enough for the draft. “He watches all your games. Thinks ‘whatever Great Alexander Ovechkin does, I’m gonna do when I grow up.’”“No, he doesn’t,” Sasha says.“No—oh, okay, thanks, Sash,” Alex says.Alex and Sasha are best friends. They share all their bad ideas.





	Black Tea

**Author's Note:**

> No comment. @blushingsweet knows who she is.

 

2010

 

“I’m very happy for the opportunity,” the kid says. 

There’s a sunny underwater echo like he’s calling from his mother’s kitchen somewhere in the countryside, which Alex can imagine because he’s leaning up against Tatyana’s counter right now. He took his first calls from Washington here not so many years ago, except he thinks he was over a little further, handle of the silverware drawer digging into his ass.

“The Federation must like you,” Alex says now, shifting to his other foot. It’s true, they do. He’s heard enough to know, in gossip and comments from the national coaches and the lecture he got from PR. The Federation is excited about their new electric but biddable, pleasant little star. 

It isn’t quite an appropriate thing to say; hard for the kid to respond to with grace when he only just said he’s grateful.

“Um,” Evgeny Yevgenyevich says. It’s the first thing that’s made him sound like a hockey player so far. Or maybe that’s that Alex has been away so long, because good Russian hockey boys keep their mouths clean and speak neatly, when they’re officially spoken to. And Evgeny rallies, so smooth you wouldn’t have noticed the slip. “Of course, when there’s a good relationship, it’s very important. Honestly, ah, I don’t really think about it more than that. The most important thing is to understand what is asked of you and execute.”

“Of course,” Alex says, and then the kettle starts to wheeze steam. He switches the phone to his other shoulder to flick the burner off and pour. “We’ll be happy to have you.”

Anyone in the offices in Washington wouldn’t believe them right now. Alex is a welcome with open arms, he’s supposed to be able to bring new players over like no one else in the League. But this is pleasant conversation by the FHR rulebook. Alex never forgets, but he rarely meets a player who is better, or is asked to be better, at making nice than him.

The kid has such a boring name Alex might have forgotten ever hearing it until Washington selected him, if he hadn’t heard it over and over again. He’s well-behaved. Alex had palmed a cigarette from Sasha’s pocket, rolled it between his finger and thumb until he slowly shredded it, knowing as he did so he’s never going to taste one. When they call he always caves.

Evgeny Yevgenyevich pauses again, like a stuttering lawnmower engine, or a dog on the street that isn’t sure of you. And there has to be something in his sweet blond head that PR didn’t plant there, because he’s reading Alex as Alex reads him.

“It’s not like the national team,” he says. “Of course I want to play for us, with the team. But Washington is my dream too, since we were little.” Stops, starts, and this time the dog is pushing its square wary nose against Alex’s hand. “When we were kids I used to watch your highlights, you know?”

“No,” Alex says, but of course he did.  He shifts, and there’s the handle of the silverware drawer.

“My friend and I used to sneak down to use the public computers in the apartment block, you know. Go on Youtube to watch you score goals and celebrate, always, again and again and again as long as we could. And we’d run out in the yard and make up our own, score our own ways and celebrate. And I always think...that’s it, you know? Not for Russia, not for anyone, just with your friends.” Alex hears him take a breath, and count it out again, but the sound is sunny with a laugh.

“Even if it takes some time, every game I play I need to prove that I want to go there and am ready to play for you. I hope I can be there like you one day,” Zhenya says, laughing, although he won’t remember it.

There’s something PR didn’t approve, Alex thinks. An unsettling natural intelligence, for one, and a few things Alex put there. 

“Chelyabinskaya. You grow up in the city?” he asks, instead of anything.

“Yeah.”

“There all summer?”

“Yes,” the kid says. Back to a little more careful.

“Okay,” Alex says. “Okay. What do you think I come out and see you and we talk proper?” He means less proper. Not on the phone, not on behalf of the Federation or anyone, because maybe there’s a chance this kid is someone Alex will be able to talk to on his own.

And once he’s out there anyway, it’s not so far to drop by Sasha’s summer place unannounced. Maybe Sasha will finally have gotten bored of fishing by the time he gets out there, and will let Alex dunk him in the lake, or race him out under the open sky where rational traffic regulations  and everything else falls away.

Alex and Sasha are best friends. They share all their bad ideas.

 


End file.
